Want Your Content to Go Viral? Here’s How You Can Increase Your Odds

Viral marketing means free marketing – or at least that’s what a lot of marketers think. But it isn’t always the case if you want to get the best possible results from your viral marketing efforts.

It doesn’t mean that you have to make a huge investment. But there are paid options out there that allow you to improve the odds of viral success.

Mike Templeman, CEO of Foxtail Marketing wrote[1] in a post on VentureBeat:

“Just because it went viral doesn’t mean it did so for free. If you’ve created a video, you can pay for placements on YouTube. If you wrote a compelling blog post, you can promote it via Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Regardless of what you’ve created, there’s a platform that will allow you to promote it for relatively cheap. If you’re good and you spend the time on it, you can have thousands of eyeballs on your marketing message for the cost of a can of soda.”

Yes, it is possible for you to create some content for free and have it go viral without any paid promotions. But that would require great content, perfect timing, and a lot of luck.

You spend a lot of time creating content that you think has the potential to go viral. So it can be a huge disappointment, not to mention a waste of resources, not to give that content a chance to reach as large an audience as possible.

If a small investment can get your fantastic content in front of more eyes, isn’t it worthy of consideration?

Paying for placement on social media sites and similar outlets isn’t a guaranteed strategy for getting your content to go viral, either. But it certainly increases the odds. And once your content gets in front of that initial set of eyes, that’s where the potential for going viral really begins.

If your content is share-worthy, then those who saw it because of your paid promotion are likely to share it with others. You can stop paying for placement and continue to reap the benefits of that initial investment as your content’s reach grows.

You can’t buy viral success. It still takes great content and timing. But there are ways you can improve your odds in the luck department. To give your content a better chance, consider investing in it the way you’d invest in the rest of your business. You might be surprised at the results.